Antonio Accurso saw his yacht as not just a luxury but also as a revenue-generating part of his business empire.

Accurso was boastful about his yacht, called Touch, while testifying for a second day in the jury trial at the Joliette courthouse, where he is charged with helping former Mascouche mayor Richard Marcotte commit a breach of trust between 2006 and 2008.

The jury has heard evidence and been shown photographs of Marcotte taking vacations on the yacht, but as part of his defence, Accurso has testified that he and Marcotte were friends since the late 1970s and that their relationship didn’t change after Marcotte was first elected mayor in 1991. Accurso also said he didn’t use the yacht to gain any influence to obtain municipal contracts from Marcotte.

On Tuesday, Accurso was asked by his defence lawyer, Marc Labelle, to provide a history of the yacht.

“It is a project of which I am extremely proud,” Accurso said, adding that Marcotte often accompanied him to watch while the boat was constructed. “I had boats all my life. I think my father bought me my first boat at 16.”

Accurso estimated that construction of the Touch created 150 jobs between 1999 and 2004.

“The goal was to construct it and to rent it,” Accurso said.

Tony Accurso’s yacht Touch in 2006.Court files

Accurso also said that by renting out the Touch between 17 and 24 weeks a year (at a rate between $60,000 and $70,000 a week), he was able to cover his own costs when he used it.

“My only costs were for food and drinks,” Accurso said, adding he sometimes accepted last-minute requests to charter the boat, even if it interrupted his vacation plans, because “I wasn’t going to turn down that amount for a trip with friends.”

Accurso appeared to be making the point to the jury that the trips Marcotte took on the boat did not cost much. Much of the trial has focused on time Marcotte spent on the Touch in 2008 while Mascouche had tenders out for major projects.

Accurso testified that one guest — “Frank Zampino (former chairman of the executive committee of the city of Montreal), a childhood friend” — was the only person to reimburse him for having vacationed on the Touch. He said Zampino gave him a $5,000 cheque without solicitation.

While being cross-examined by prosecutor Pascal Grimard, Accurso was asked more questions about Zampino and a vacation he took on the Touch in February 2008.

“I didn’t understand why he did it,” Accurso said in reference to the reimbursement. “It was (Zampino) who knew his job (and the potential conflict of interest the vacation represented), not me.”

Accurso also elaborated on his relationship with Zampino, saying their fathers were close friends and that “I have known Frank since the age of four of five.”

He said he’d now describe Zampino as an acquaintance because he does not see him much anymore.

Frank Zampino, right, former chairman of the Montreal executive committee, on vacation with Quebec construction magnate Tony Accurso in this undated handout photo.Paul Chiasson /
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Grimard also asked several questions about a $300,000 cheque that is an important part of the Crown’s case. Accurso signed the cheque that was issued by his company, Simard Beaudry Construction Inc., and dated April 17, 2008. The jury has been presented with evidence that $277,000 from that cheque ended up in a Swiss bank account controlled by Marcotte. Accurso has repeated several times that the $300,000 was a loan he made to Marcotte so he could invest in a real-estate project, possibly in Europe.

While answering questions from Grimard, Accurso said he didn’t ask his friend many questions about what the $300,000 would be invested in.

“You didn’t ask him why is this (cheque being made out to a company) with an address in Switzerland,” Grimard asked at one point.

“(Marcotte) said Verona (Equities Corp., the company the cheque was made out to) was an international company with investments all over the world,” Accurso said, repeating that he and Marcotte never wrote out an agreement for the loan. “I come from a generation where a handshake and a person’s word means more than paperwork.”

At one point in the cross-examination, Superior Court Justice James Brunton, the judge presiding over the trial, interjected and asked Accurso if he told anyone else at Simard Beaudry Construction Inc. about the loan. Accurso told the jury he gives the heads of each of his companies complete control over their respective day-to-day affairs. Accurso said he believes he told Charles Caruana, his vice-president in charge of financing, about the loan.

“What did you say about the cheque?” Brunton asked.

“I said it was a loan to Mr. Marcotte and that (the funds) would come back,” Accurso said.

Earlier in his testimony, he confirmed that Marcotte, who died of natural causes in 2016, never paid him back.

Labelle declared the defence’s case closed when Accurso finished testifying. The jury will not sit on Wednesday while lawyers from both sides and Brunton prepare for the final stages of the trial. The judge told the jury to prepare to be sequestered on Monday.